Guardian News and Media/Santa Catarina Pinula
Beneath the mud and rock that engulfed the small Guatemalan town of Santa Catarina Pinula, search crews have found entire families who died huddled together after they were buried alive.
At least 161 people were killed in Thursday’s disaster just outside Guatemala City, government officials said, and emergency services chief Alejandro Maldonado said at least 300 people were still unaccounted for.
The mud that swallowed the El Cambray neighbourhood, which lies at the bottom of a deep ravine, is so deep that rescue workers are descending 12m through narrow shafts to reach the roofs of homes.
“We’ve found entire families,” said Sergio Cabanas, an official at disaster agency Conred. “We found almost all of them huddled together, which means that they were going to try and evacuate but sadly they didn’t have time.”
“Some died from the impact, some from asphyxiation and some ... from heart attacks,” he added.
Rescue efforts have been hampered by the precarious situation at the site, said Cabanas. There were two smaller landslides on Monday. A nearby river has risen by over 1m, and rescue workers fear for the stability of the hillside where the landslide began.
So far, no survivors have been found at the site, and rescue workers say the chances of finding anyone alive under the 120,000 tonnes of earth that buried the area are close to zero.
But rescue teams, who are using bulldozers and backhoes to search the huge mound of dirt, vowed to keep up the search.
“Our determination to continue is firm. We’re not going to stop until we finish the job. The objective is that nobody is left buried at the site,” Maldonado told a press conference.
Guatemala’s government, which is in disarray after former president Otto Perez was forced to resign and was arrested on corruption charges last month, declared three days of mourning for those lost in the landslide.
More and more questions were being asked about why people were allowed to build homes at the base of a dangerous hillside next to a small river.
Conred said it had warned about the risk to Cambray, a middle-class area populated by government workers, since last year, and had recommended that residents be relocated.
Conred has now declared the Cambray area uninhabitable, and many residents are now living in shelters. Its director, Alejandro Maldonado, said he had warned the local mayor that the river was eating away at the base of the steep hill. Maldonado said he was still waiting for a report from local authorities about what they had done in response to the warning.
Maldonado acknowledged there are many neighbourhoods like Cambray in and around Guatemala City that are at risk of flooding or mudslides.
Relatives participate in the burial of Santos Etelvina Sontay, a victim of a mudslide in Santa Catarina Pinula, on the outskirts of Guatemala City.
